'The Cosby Show' Was Made To Show Parents As Being Smarter Than Their Kids On TV: Bill Cosby

"The Cosby Show" was Bill Cosby’s attempt to change the way parenting was portrayed on television, the actor told ABC News in a recent interview cited by Us Weekly, adding that he hated shows where children were portrayed to be brighter than their parents.

The popular show about an upper-middle class African-American family living in Brooklyn, which originally aired on NBC from 1984 to 1992, was based on two principles, Cosby said.

“Number one . . . I hated those series where the children were brighter than the parents, and those parents had to play dumb," Cosby said. "Number two was that I wanted to 'take the house back.'"

Cosby believes that children should not be entertained at the expense of parenting, adding that just because parents want to be well-liked they should not be made to look stupid.

“[We] parents make it difficult," he said, "because we want to be well-liked. And I’m not saying that parenting, you shouldn’t want to be well-liked, but you also have to have some kind of judgment.”

"The Cosby Show" featured the lives of the Huxtables -- a doctor and his lawyer wife raising their children in Brooklyn. According to a Jump Cut report, it was the most-watched program in the U.S. for four years from 1985.

The family issues that were featured on the show are still relevant today, making it a favorite in syndication, Keshia Knight-Pulliam, who played the youngest child in the series, told the Today show on the occasion of "The Cosby Show's" 25th anniversary, Us Weekly reported.

A pop culture survey conducted by the National Geographic in association with Kelton Research showed that the Huxtables were the most-preferred '80s television family that a majority of Americans wanted to be adopted by, Yahoo reported.